What used to be an annual rite of Spring is now an annual rite of Fall.Instead of your player cards arriving around the time Pitchers and Catchers report to signal the start of the new Baseball season, your player cards arrive when the annual awards for Cy Young, MVP, Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year and the Gold Glove awards are announced in November and the Hot Stove league heats up with trade rumors over the Winter Meetings.

We used to talk about the possibility of coming out with the new player cards in time for Christmas in some of our Pursue the Pennant meetings.Are you kidding?Not possible. It wasn’t even on the radar back then. To do what will happen with the release of the DYNASTY League Baseball 2008 season was unthinkable:

The entire printing system and equipment was upgraded this Summer and the results far exceeded expectations – printing speeds are now 40 x faster than before.What does that mean?The player card pre-orders that used to take 3-4 months to print, now will take 3-4 weeks.That’s right.So the staggered first in first out shipping won’t be nearly as staggered.

Everyone who pre-orders will have their season player card set shipped in November.

The new printing system also has the benefits of very high print resolutions with very sharp and clear text and a coating on the paper stock to prevent player cards from sticking.

The 2008 World Series teams will once again be offered as PDF’s so you can play the 2008 World Series. If you have placed a pre-order for the 2008 season, send an email to:

Include 2008 World Series in the subject of the email and your name in the body of the email and the PDF of the Rays and Phillies will be sent to you prior to the 2008 season release. Estimating the 2008 World Series PDF will be emailed in late October or early November prior to the release of the 2008 season set.

Mike Wilner of FAN 590 Radio has been pre-playing the World Series each year since 2004 with DYNASTY League Baseball.In case you missed it, Jamie Hall took over as Jim Leyland and I was Tony LaRussa as we pre-played the 2006 World Series before each game for CBS.

Size of the 2008 season set?Same as 2007 (972 players).

Top three most anticipated 2008 DYNASTY League Baseball teams:

Cubs

Brewers

Rays

Top three most anticipated 2008 DYNASTY League Baseball player cards:

CC Sabathia

Albert Pujols and Chipper Jones (tie)

Josh Hamilton

Top three most anticipated 2008 DYNASTY League Baseball rookies:

Evan Longoria

Geovany Soto

Armando Galarraga

2008 season playoff players receiving Clutch hitting ratings:

Ryan Howard .322 BA and .552 SLG RSP/2

Manny Ramirez .318 BA/.576 SLG RSP/2. Manny just being Manny, but he also gets a D Intangible rating for his antics with the Red Sox.

Mark Teixeira .352 BA/.716 SLG Close and Late

Kevin Youkilis .328 BA/.492 SLG RSP/2

Carlos Quentin .351 BA/.757 SLG Close and Late

Vladimir Guerrero .350 BA/.638 SLG Close and Late

Aramis Ramirez .423 BA/.873 SLG Close and Late

David Ortiz .346 BA/.885 SLG RSP/2 and bonus points for the three run jack in game 5 of the ALCS that sparked the greatest comeback in post season history.

Evan Longoria .333 BA/.754 SLG Close and Late

Garrett Anderson .356 BA RSP/2, .371 BA/.578 SLG Close and Late

Dustin Pedroia .368 BA/.526 SLG Close and Late

Andre Eithier .327 BA/.500 SLG RSP/2

Alexei Ramirez .321 BA/.566 SLG RSP/2

Biggest surprise not to get a Clutch hitting rating?Chase Utley .242 BA RSP/2 and .221 BA in Close and Late

NOTE: Clutch hitting ratings are awarded based on a combination of stats including RSP/2, Close and Late, RSP and RBI.

DYNASTY League Baseball ULTIMATE Ball Park charts (Board version) and updated Ball park effects for the Windows version and Online version

New in 2008 are updated HR results for Minute Maid Park that include the Crawford Boxes,Train Tracks (Pujols blast off Lidge in the 2005 NLCS) and Conoco HR porch.

Making it’s debut in 2008 is Nationals Park:

Most Anticipated New Version of Pursue the Pennant and DYNASTY League Baseball:

A next generation user interface is designed to make bracket style Greatest Teams tournaments and continuous Draft League play much easier, faster and more fun.

Don’t have enough time to play? A new profile based Computer Manager and Scheduler allow you to play live or have the game Managed for you based on your Manager profile so no matter how busy you are you’ll always have time for DYNASTY League Baseball Online.

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